PGU-14/B vs T-80 Simulation | A-10 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger Armour Piercing Simulation

The A-10 was designed during the cold war with the primary purpose of providing close air support against armoured vehicles, such as the T-80. The A-10's main armament, the 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger, fires 3900 rounds per minute, with the armour piercing ammunition featuring a depleted uranium core.

The T-80 would be a likely target if the cold war went hot, with the simulation showing how PGU-14/B would fair against the side of the T-80, at close range, and from tree-top level.

SOME IMPORTANT NOTES ON THE SIMULATION (with sources below):
1. Regarding the scenario:
-The A-10 will not normally perform top down attacks; attacking from tree-top level provides better protection against anti-air [1].
-The 2.5° is within attack angles from [1], but at a higher aircraft velocity, lower altitude, and closer range, to create a 'best case scenario' for the PGU-14/B.
-While the 30mm could easily penetrate the rear or top armour of the T-80, the side makes a more interesting visualisation of the round's power.

2. Regarding the round:
-There have been many variants of the core of PGU-14/B, with varying lengths; the 16x99mm core was one listed in [1], with modern versions likely to be more effective (like the penetration graph shown in [1]).

3. Regarding Depleted Uranium:
-DU does deform and erode [2][3]
-DU erodes above ~800m/s [1][2][3] (which is why the round stops eroding as it slows down)
-DU does have complex shear band localisation, causing it to deform and erode differently to tungsten [2][3][4]
-The parameters used for this simulation apparently account for this [4]
-DU does outperform Tungsten alloy below ~1600m/s, but tungsten begins to outperform DU above this velocity [2][5]
-DU is still slightly radioactive [3]

4. Regarding the simulation:
-The parameters used are the best that could be found, with the exact look of 'self-sharpening' still not universally agreed upon
-The parameters used are Johnson-Cook which may not even be able to account for real world DU behaviour
-A finer mesh and higher strain limit may be needed for more shear bands to show up but I dont have the computational power
-Incendiary effects are not accounted for
-It's the best I could produce with the information and parameters I've found; even if I invested substantial time to edit the parameters to match the performance curves from [5], it's hard to say if it 'looks right' due to lack of comparisons

Sources:
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
[2] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA236...
[3] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA387...
[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
[5] http://www.longrods.ch/optv.php